Deathtales is exactly what it sounds like. It's about death. It's One, Two except the reason that there are only two triplets is that one of them died. We're obviously going to go through all of the triplets one at a time, starting with Huey, we might not do anyone else in the family, and I might not write Webby's reactions to the deaths because... Because I don't write Webby, that much, I guess? In this chapter, I don't write much about Scrooge either. It all just depends.

I hope you enjoy the angst, but if you don't, that's okay. It was fun to write.

Chapter 1- Huey

You never expect it'll happen to anyone, certainly not a child, certainly not your brother, your slightly older brother. Dewey and Louie were in shock. No one ever expected it. Everyone was stuck in the stages of grief and it was becoming abundantly clear that it wasn't a tracklist coming one after another and then stopping. It was more like an orchestra, with each stage of grief playing at once, so loud that no one could think. Huey would have appreciated that observation and metaphor. But thinking about what Huey would've appreciated only made the cacophony worse.

No one expected it. He was just a little kid when someone had taken it too far. When solving mysteries and rewriting history had stopped being a game. There were a lot of people who hated Scrooge McDuck. There were a lot of people who hated his family. But Ducks don't back down, right? After you've saved earth from aliens you might think you can do anything, face anyone. That was how Hubert Duck ended up facing down the barrel of a gun.

Every time he closed his eyes Louie saw his brother's feathers stained with blood, brains spilling from the hole put in Huey's head. Huey had always been the smartest one but that was desecrated now, spilled onto the concrete because someone had thought he was too smart. Louie stopped sleeping but he still spent most of his time in bed, lying now on Huey's bunk at the very top, holding onto Huey's sheets and pillows, doing his best not to fall asleep and dream of his brother in heartbreaking detail. Leaving this small oasis, this place where he could imagine that Huey was alive, terrified him. For the first few days, people tried to get him out of bed. For the first few days whenever someone asked he wondered how hard he'd have to fall to join Huey. Eventually, people stopped expecting him to move, after all, they had their own grief to bear.

If anyone asked, which they wouldn't dare, Dewey was "coping" better. Dewey was out of bed at least. Dewey would even leave the house, something that some of the adults didn't necessarily feel right doing. He'd started wearing Huey's hat and carrying around the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. Huey had so many notes in the back, and Dewey would look through them and not cry. After Huey's death, after the first day alone, Dewey hadn't cried. He'd cried when he happened and now, while his family openly mourned, he was restrained. He added an entry to the back of the guidebook. How to Mourn: Don't. He knew Huey was gone. Of course Huey was gone. But inside of him were two wolves. The first wolf snarled a need for revenge. The second wolf insisted that Huey wasn't dead, only missing and that Dewey needed to find him. So Dewey would take to the streets, be gone for hours at a time, sometimes not coming home at night and never sleeping in the room where his older brother was supposed to be.

Louie and Dewey didn't talk. Well neither of them really talked at all, not finding anything they particularly needed to say to anyone. Though Dewey never said it he guessed Louie wished that Dewey had died instead of Huey. Louie wouldn't say it to anyone, but he believed the world would be a much brighter place if they could see red instead of green, and he imagined his only brother felt the same. Something about that sentiment made it painful to breathe, so the two brothers went on trying not to think what they both thought they knew, that the world would've been better if one of them had died in Huey's stead.

Della was going insane. She wanted terribly to be able to mother her boys right now, to sweep Dewey and Louie into her arms in the wake of the tragedy, to cry with them and tell them it would be okay again eventually. But Dewey wasn't crying and Louie was never going to believe things could be okay. So she felt terribly isolated, angry at the world that took her son away, angry that the family that remained had been irreparably damaged. She wanted to get revenge on the person that killed her son, but she'd been talked down after the funeral, only quietly fuming now as she spun, alone, in a circle, trying to figure out which child to reach out to, her cries falling on deaf ears whenever she tried. She would keep trying, she would keep trying. But it felt so much like she'd lost more than one child that day.

You can't talk down Donald Duck. He had nothing productive to funnel his anger into, certainly not Dewey and Louie, who fell dangerously on opposite ends of the grieving spectrum. So he was hunting a killer. He refused to stop or slow down. Like Dewey, he spent most of his time out of the house. Sometimes their paths crossed, and Donald would tell Dewey to go home. Sometimes Dewey went home, Donald didn't check. In the morning he would feel sick with wondering. What if something happened to Dewey? But he didn't know how to help his boys. He didn't know how to help anyone. He hadn't been able to save Huey, he couldn't save Dewey and Louie as they spiraled out of control. He couldn't save his sister. They were all falling and failing.

Scrooge wasn't a stranger to the spiral. He had spiraled when Della had disappeared and when Donald had cut him out of his life. But this was the hardest thing. Huey had been 11-years-old. Scrooge forced himself out into the world, forced himself to tend to his business as best as he could, forced himself to check in on his family. But it all seemed meaningless. He was supposed to be unstoppable, he'd let him believe once more that his family was as well. He seemed to be coping but his life was without purpose, without adventure or joy. He wore a mask and pretended to be okay. But he was not. Maybe one day he would be again. Maybe one day he would find purpose again.

Donald and Dewey were asleep on opposite ends of the couch the day the Duck family started to heal. Della had barged into her sons' room, desperate to reach out to one of them, desperate to be reminded of what remained and remind them in turn. Huey's life had been cut off too soon, there would always be a hole in their hearts missing him. But she would not let herself watch her sons' lives deteriorate.

"Louie! Louie, please, get out of bed. We haven't seen you in forever."

"I don't feel good," Louie mumbled, gripping Huey's sheets, resisting letting go. If he let go, Huey would be gone for good.

"I know sweetheart, I know. Everyone is grieving right now. Please join us?"

"I want to join him," Louie said quietly, and Della's heart broke.

"Louie, don't say that… Things are going to be okay again, I promise."

"You can't promise that you don't know…" Louie turned to look at her now, staring at her, questioning why she thought anything would ever be okay again.

"Face each new sun with eyes clear and true, unafraid of the unknown, because I face it all with you…" Della sang softly, trying to offer Louie any comfort and strength she had left. Louie slowly let go of Huey's sheets and blankets and allowed himself to fall off the edge of the bunk, choosing pain over comfort.

"Louie!" Della shouted out in horror as Louie hit the floor, not able to catch him in time. She scooped him up and cradled him close as he groaned and tears filled his eyes.

"Oh baby, how bad does it hurt? Are you okay? You'll be okay…" She was panicking, the image of her oldest boy sprawled out on the concrete, blood gushing from his head filled her own and she held Louie close, so scared of losing him too.

"I-I'm s-sorry…" Louie sobbed into her shirt.

"No, it's okay baby, you didn't mean to fall…"

"Yes, I did… It should have been me… It always should have been me… Huey was going to be important and I'm just a fraud..." Neither of them heard the footsteps, Donald and Dewey alerted to the commotion by Della's scream. Donald put a hand on Dewey's shoulder as they watched Louie and Della share a breakdown.

"No… No Louie. No one should have died but losing you as well won't change what happened. We all love you and we don't want you beating yourself up over who lives and dies. We don't control that, baby. We can't control that. We can only honor Huey's memory and keep living."

"Living is too hard," Louie sobbed, crying into her jacket. Once more, Della's heart fractured into enough pieces to completely fill the money bin.

"I know it's hard right now. That's why we're all here for you." She saw her brother and son in the doorway and waved them in. Dewey ran over, tears stinging his eyes, joining the hug. He hadn't cried since the funeral. The hat fell off of his head when he ran, and when Della knelt down next to him he hugged his brother.

"Louie… Do you really think it should've been you?" Dewey asked over his own sobs.

"I do…"

"I thought that too…" Dewey didn't feel as ashamed or alone anymore. Louie wrapped his arms around Dewey and Della wrapped her arms around both of them.

"It's okay to feel that way," Donald finally spoke, "I felt that way when Della disappeared. But we have to keep living. To honor him and carry on his legacy." It hurt to say. It hurt to talk about carrying on the legacy of a dead 11-year-old. But loss was always going to be painful, and Donald had learned once before to turn the pain into motivation. He knelt to join the hug and it wasn't long before they were all crying at once on the bedroom floor, bearing this pain together.

At one point, Louie and Dewey, exhausted from emotion, fell asleep and Della and Donald tucked them into bed. Then Della climbed up to the top bunk and made the bed, setting Huey's hat on the pillow.

"They're going to be okay," she whispered, half to herself and half to Donald.

"So are we," Donald said, putting a hand on Della's shoulder. Louie's sentiment, that it was too hard to live, rang true for all of them. This shared, cathartic breakdown hadn't healed all wounds and time wouldn't either. They would always hurt and living would always be hard. But hard wasn't impossible, and Ducks don't back down.